Nicephorus I of Byzantium

Nicephorus I of Byzantium (750-26 July 811) was the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 802 to 811, succeeding Irene of Byzantium and preceding Stavrakios of Byzantium.

Biography
Nicephorus was born in 750 to the House of Logothetes, and he was a patrician of the Byzantine Empire. Empress Irene of Byzantium appointed him Minister of Finance, but he gained the support of the patricians and eunuchs and overthrew the empress, and Nicephorus took the throne for himself. He defeated Bardanes Tourkos' rebellion and blinded him, and he created new themes in the Balkans, strengthening the frontiers. From 806 to 810 he fought Emperor Charlemagne of the Holy Roman Empire, his rival as the spiritual successor to the Roman Empire. Nicephorus defeated a Venetian rebellion in 807 but suffered severe losses to the Franks, and the issue only ended after his death. He fought Caliph Harun al-Rashid of the Abbasid Caliphate and lost the 805 Battle of Krasos, but after the Caliph's death in 809 he was free to deal with his other rival, the First Bulgarian Empire. In 811 he fought Khan Krum of Bulgaria at the Battle of Pliska, where he was beheaded and his skull used as a drinking cup by the fierce Krum, as the Byzantines suffered a severe defeat. Nicephorus' son Stavrakios of Byzantium reigned for only three months before abdicating due to suffering wounds in the battle of Pliska.